Relic: Things you didn't know Pt. 2

By

Andy Bergin

Posted On 07.19.2017

From Gilgamesh to Noah, stories of a great deluge have persisted throughout history. It so happens that another great flood myth was recorded in the annals of Relic.

Many aeons ago, the people of Relic once inhabited a land called Bentall. It was a fine and happy place. It is said that on one bright and peaceful day, while the programmers tended to their code, a vile and terrible blackness set itself upon the realm.

A worker toiled to force passage in an old wall. With great might did he heft his mallet, but alas, one of his fell blows wandered astray. A sprinkler head was rent asunder, and unleashed was a ceaseless discharge of dark water.

The fetid torrent spread with unnatural haste, threatening to engulf all before it. With livelihoods at stake, panic wove its way through the halls of Bentall, and with it came a pungent stench that made many a Relican recoil.

It is said that amidst the horror a venerable champion called Matthew rose up, leading his people, and their arcane technology to safety.

TLDR: There was a big flood that nearly ruined everything!

Much Mischief

The Bentall Building certainly saw its fair share of mischief. Home to offices housing lawyers, architects and other businessy types, our boisterous bunch stood out like a sore thumb! Maybe this classic email from our Finance Director will give you an idea as to why.

Unsurprisingly, the shenanigans didn’t stop there. Nerf gun battles became all the rage. As Neil, one of our Designers succinctly put it, “escalation happened.” Nerf sniper rifles and machine guns were purchased, modifications were made, and before you knew it, Relicans were gleefully whizzing around on scooters performing drive by shootings on their colleagues.

At the absolute peak of nerf gun mania, the police were called, after employees from the building opposite glimpsed Relicans marching around with guns near the windows!

Speaking of windows, one morning puzzled Relicans arrived at work to find a cabbage sitting outside the main entrance to the building. Things became clearer once they made it up to our studio to find a colossal crack in our playtest room window! How some lunatic managed to break a double reinforced 15th story window with a cabbage will forever remain a mystery. Nevertheless, that doesn’t stop Relicans from speculating, even after all these years.

We’ve always enjoyed a bit of friendly competition. Way back when, we had a company-wide tournament to win the newly released PS3. However, in traditional Relic fashion, our tourney was a little bit different. Our chosen format? Thumb-wrestling! Yep, we had a 64-bracket thumb-wrestling competition to win a games console.

Easter Eggs

During the development of Company of Heroes, our environment artists used to ‘battle’ by hiding pictures of each other’s faces inside buildings and structures. They used to give clues and try to counter their opponent’s moves. Apparently, all faces were removed from the game before launch, but you never know, maybe there are one or two Relic faces still hidden away somewhere...

Big head mode is no doubt the most classic of Easter Eggs. Well, did you know it exists in COH1? Chris one of programmers said, ‘we had to include it, I feel like it’s every developer's sacred duty, we’re standing on the shoulders of giants.”

During the development of Company of Heroes Online, Ryan and Darwin, two of our Designers, decided to do some placeholder voiceover work for the tutorial missions. No big deal eh? Yeah…. not until their shoddy voicemanship was accidentally shipped into the beta! At the time, Ryan was devastated to read a forum post that said, “Relic’s voice actor quality has gone significantly downhill.” With his dreams torn to shreds, Ryan’s remained in Design ever since.

That's it for now. We hope you've enjoyed finding out about some of the cool stories, and general nonsense that's happened here over the years. Follow us on Twitter or Facebook to catch more 20th-anniversary content as it comes up. Big things on the way!